81-year-old Saved From Sinking Car

A retiree and a recently arrived snowbird dived into a canal at their apartment complex west of Boca Raton on Tuesday to rescue an 81-year-old man who was trapped in his slowly sinking car.

Gunnar Haug, 62, stripped off his shoes and shirt, and Myles Feldman, 56, clad in tennis shorts, plunged into a canal at the Pines of Boca Barwood and pulled the shocked man through a smashed-in rear passenger window.

Then they watched the car disappear.

``As I looked behind, I saw the car going down -- like the Titanic, with bubbles and everything,`` said Feldman, who arrived here Thursday from his Baltimore home.

``I got a real sick feeling in my stomach. I didn`t realize how close to a tragedy we were.``

But driver Albert Ozrovitz realized.

``He figured he was a goner,`` said Ozrovitz`s wife, Anna.

Ozrovitz, who also lives at the Boca Barwood apartment complex in the 23000 block of Carolwood Lane, was treated at North Broward Medical Center in Pompano Beach and released Tuesday evening. His wife said he was resting and could not come to the phone.

She said Ozrovitz, a retired cap maker from Detroit, owed his life to Haug and Feldman.

``Those two men were marvelous, just marvelous. They saved his life,`` she said.

She said her husband had just washed their four-door Mercury Marquis and was pulling it into a carport about 10:30 a.m. ``Instead of stepping on the brakes, he stepped on the gas,`` she said.

Then Ozrovitz continued straight into the water, she said.

Seconds after the car hit the water, Haug, who was watching television, heard cries for help coming from the parking lot. He said he looked from his apartment, saw the car going down and raced toward the canal.

He recognized Ozrovitz, then dived in and swam to the canal`s far side, where the car was floating.

``I tried to talk to him through a window, but he was in shock,`` said Haug, a retired contractor.

He said the car was fully automatic, and the doors and windows could not be opened.

Then Haug spied a rusty metal bottled gas canister floating in the water. He grabbed it by the handles and broke the rear passenger window, which was tilted up and away from the water.

Feldman, who had swum to Haug`s side, said the rescuers called to Ozrovitz to crawl into the back seat, but he seemed stunned and would not come.

Finally, Ozrovitz crawled into the back.

``Don`t worry about cutting him coming through (the window). He can get that fixed,`` Haug said he called to Feldman.

Then Haug said he reached into the car and pulled Ozrovitz free.

Feldman said Ozrovitz is lucky to be a small man, or else he couldn`t have fit through the window.

Shortly after Haug and Feldman got Ozrovitz to the bank, paramedicas arrived and took him to the hospital, said Lt. Bruce Emerson of Palm Beach County Fire-Rescue.

Both rescuers agreed they were lucky to have the metal canister floating nearby.

``It was made to order for what I did,`` Haug said.

``If it weren`t for that can, the car might have gone down with him in it,`` Feldman said.

Although neither Haug nor Feldman suffered more than a few cuts during the rescue, they said they were angry at having to spend a half-day and $73 apiece to get tetanus shots at Northwest Regional Hospital in Margate.